Friday, January 31, 2014

Today the House and the Senate
are honoring our veterans by passing a series of bills that will improve access
to services and make exemptions to ease qualifying veterans into college.

The House has a series of bills
which are focusing on studying military children’s experiences in Washington
Schools with the intent of following up with services if necessary. They
are also passing out legislation that would give our veterans credit for courses
undertaken while in the military for licensing credential requirements and
college course credit.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

State Senate leaders reverse course, agree to version of ‘Dream Act’

OLYMPIA — State Senate Republican leaders have agreed to authorize college financial aid for students illegally brought to the United States as children, a surprising shift that is expected to pave the way for passage of the major Democratic priority.

The Senate GOP will announce the decision at a 3:30 p.m. news conference, according to a top Republican senator.

Senate Bill 6523, introduced Thursday by Senate Majority Leader Rodney Tom and five others, would make the change and provide $5 million “or as much thereof as may be necessary” to account for increased participants in the State Need Grant program.

The bill would be called the “REAL (Real Educational Access, changing Lives) Hope Act.”

It is virtually identical to House Bill 1817, also called the state version of the “Dream Act,” which has been a big priority for Gov. Jay Inslee and other Democrats for more than a year.

The Democrat-controlled state House voted 71-23 to approvethe bill on the first day of this year’s legislative session, but the Republican-run Senate had not been expected to take it up.

State Rep. Larry Seaquist, who chairs the House Higher Education Committee, called the Senate GOP’s move “a win for our students.”

“This is saying to all Latino students: ‘the door’s open. We want you in our universities,’” said Seaquist, D-Gig Harbor. “It’s important for our whole state. We can’t survive as a state if we don’t have all of these people going through our colleges and universities.”

The Department’s Office for Civil Rights and the Department of
Justice released the first-ever federal policy guidance to enhance
school climate and improve school discipline policies and practices.

“Teachers and principals make difficult, yet appropriate,
decisions involving the use of school discipline each and every school day,”
wrote Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon. “And yet, in
some of our schools and districts, the unfair and unnecessary use of
suspensions and expulsions undermine this essential work. Students must be in
school to be successful.”

In 2013, Secretary Arne Duncan visited his 49th
state as Secretary of Education. “Getting out of Washington and into
classrooms provides me with the opportunity to talk with students, teachers,
parents, and college leaders on what is working and what we still need to
accomplish,” he writes. Read: Looking
Back at 5 Memorable School Visits of 2013.

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Jan. 28, 2014) — In the 2014 State of the Union, an
annual address delivered by the President of the United States before members
of Congress, President Barack Obama expressed a renewed commitment to ensure
that every child has access to high-quality early education.

“For decades, National PTA has called for the prioritization of early
education, as research shows that providing effective, targeted supports and
interventions to children and parents starting at birth will better prepare
them for academic and career success,” said Otha Thornton, National PTA
President. “National PTA applauds the Administration’s renewed commitment to
early education and the increased dedication of resources to expand access to
high-quality programs for all children from birth to kindergarten.”

The E-wire is doing some research at the office today while
the House and Senate are in and out of caucus and taking floor action. The
Senate has chosen to lob over the wall the Structured Settlement legislation
which prompted the House to respond by sending over the sick leave
proposal. The controversial SB 5246 which makes changes to the Teacher /
Principal Evaluations remains on the Senate 2nd Reading Calendar
meaning that there will now be amendments offered. What they look like is
anyone’s guess. More on this issue soon.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

The E-wire had a busy past few
days helping your board testify on key issues and following bills in
committee. Yesterday, the WA PTA signed in opposition to a proposal to
require a 2/3rds majority to pass tax increases. If we are to ever get
the funding required by the court to finish the promise of McCleary, it will
require additional revenue. We cannot make it more difficult than it
already is for the state to meet its legislative goals. With that – onto
the E-Wire!

Top news for today – Governor
Inslee doubles down on Education Funding for the session. Funding for the
$200 million for teacher salaries and STEM investment comes from closing $200
million in tax loopholes – watch here on TVW

Friday, January 24, 2014

It’s Higher Education Day in the House! Well not
officially, but the bulk of the bills under consideration pertain to Higher
Ed. So, hats off to the Double Larry Duo of Springer (Chair) and Haler
(Ranking Member) who have delivered to the House Floor a raft of bills under
consideration. Here are the highlights:

Substitute House Bill 1669 –
Clarifying fees and notification to students in self-supported university
programs – the bill will allow students of fee supported college programs to
better understand the costs of the program and it will improve notification to
students to prepare for those costs when they change. The bill was
authored by Representative Pollet and passed the House 86-11.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

The E-wire is sandwiched between
Marcie Maxwell, Heidi Bennett, and Sherry Krainick for House Hearings.
The room is packed and we can see Betsey Cohen from Issaquah and Micaela Razo
from Eastern Yakima County. The topics for today include:

The Washington State PTA represents the more than 1,000,000 school aged children in Washington state with a membership exceeding 100,000. Our vision is to make every child’s potential a reality. Family and Community Engagement is a key priority for PTA nationwide. Washington State PTA is here to testify in support of the changing “Parent Engagement Coordinator” to “Family and Community Engagement Coordinators.”

National PTA has an entire program titled National Standards for Family-School Partnerships which identifies six standards. Number 1 is to welcome and connect all families and Number 6 is to collaborate with community. Washington State PTA also has numerous policy statements to support this change. We also recognize that expanding the scope from parent to family and community will support non-traditional families and will be a foundational effort in engaging communities to Close the Achievement and Opportunity Gaps, which is our number 3 legislative priority.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

The E-Wire is mainlining coffee
this morning and sitting in the House Education Committee Executive
Session. The following bills were voted out of committee (subject to
signature, of course!).

HB
2017: Changes the deadline for non-renewal contracts for certificated
school employees. This allows districts an extra month to send out the
notices should the budget be passed in special instead of non-regular
session. Passed 19-0

HB 1815
– Assuring that education related information is appropriately provided to
parents with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Passed 17-2.
No’s on committee were due to concerns with the underlying costs of the bill.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

The
E-Wire was working with Heather Gillette and Sherry Krainick discussing issues
with legislators and keeping a close eye on rules committee hearings in the
Senate. Not surprisingly, the big topic coming out of the noon Rules
Committee Hearing was the advancement of the Teacher and Principal Evaluation’s
Legislation which passed out of the Senate Early Learning and K12 Education
Committee yesterday on a contentious party line vote.

Monday, January 20, 2014

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr.
Day. Throughout Washington, there are great celebrations occurring to
mark the holiday bearing his name. The E-Wire is particularly partial to
the events in Tacoma which usually has a great collection of contemporary talent
and, when I am not in legislative session, I can be found there. Today,
however, the legislature is in session and Director Krainick and I are meeting
with legislators and attending the public hearing on behalf of paraeducator
development. The discussion should be fascinating since it is a widely
unknown fact that in Washington State, paraeducators account for over 50% of
the face time for ELL and Special Ed Students. On another front, the
holiday means student lobbyists from High Schools and Colleges are populating
the halls, talking to legislators on issues ranging from access to education to
bills supported by Planned Parenthood. Check back later today for a
report on the hearing.

Friday, January 17, 2014

Washington State PTA attended
the House Higher Education Committee meeting at 8:00 a.m. on Friday, January
17, 2014 in support of Rep. Haler’s(8th District, Richland) HB 2109 Concerning the development of residency training
programs to recruit and retain primary care physicians in rural and underserved
areas of the state. Due to committee time constraints, testimony was
limited to the Kadlec group. Washington State PTA signed in as a
supporter of the bill, we did not get the opportunity to provide oral
testimony. The following written testimony was submitted to the committee:

Thursday, January 16, 2014

The
State Board of Education takes action to increase flexibility on 24 credit
graduation requirements which supports Washington State PTA's number one
priority to Advance Basic Education Reforms. These reforms are designed to support the educational needs of student in the 21st century. The 24
credit graduation requirement supports the career and
college readiness goals of the education reforms.

Dear stakeholders:I wanted to let you know that,
at its January 9 meeting, the State Board of Education adopted flexibility
provisions to its 24-credit graduation requirement framework. By law, the
Legislature must authorize and fund the requirements before they can take
effect.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

The
E-Wire is down with Sherry Krainick and Heather Gillette in Olympia today and
while we were there a raft of education and child related bills made it on the
introduction sheet. More on those bills later – for now, time to look at
what is hot on everyone’s minds down here…

Senate Democratic Leader Nelson
applauds Inslee for offering a bold State of the State Address

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

It’s
Day #2 in the legislative session! House and Senate committees are
scheduling their final work sessions before the bills that hit the hopper over
the holidays are heard in committee. Both the House and Senate Education
Committees will be hearing bills tomorrow.

The 8AM House Education hearing
will feature legislation that will attempt to get a handle on the student
privacy questions that were brought forth by this NPR article last month.
http://kuow.org/post/state-deal-give-media-organizations-student-data-alarms-privacy-experts
House Bill 2133 by Representative Scott is scheduled for hearing – no word on
possible amendments or an executive session yet. The bill's scope goes
beyond privacy issues, however, and is likely to change substantially before
passing committee.

Monday, January 13, 2014

The Washington State Supreme Court has turned up the heat on
legislators to provide local school districts the billions of dollars of
additional K-12 funding that the State’s own studies have confirmed are needed
to cure decades of unconstitutional underfunding – including fully funding
salary increases, materials and operations, transportation and both the
staffing and construction costs for full-day kindergarten and K-3 class size
reductions.

“It is incumbent upon the State to demonstrate, through
immediate, concrete action, that it is making real and measurable progress, not
just promises,” the Order stated. The Court ordered the State to submit a
detailed plan no later than April 30 that includes a year by year phase-in
schedule for fully funding every element of basic education as defined in the McCleary ruling.

The Network for Excellence in Washington Schools – the
428-member coalition of school districts and education organizations that filed
the McCleary suit – lauded the Order
for continuing to hold lawmakers accountable for their constitutional
“paramount duty” to fully and amply fund the K-12 education of all Washington
school children.

The Legislature kicked off with
a bang this afternoon starting with the House Speaker Frank Chopp issuing a
political challenge to the Senate on Education Funding and urging support of
the DREAM Act which passed the house this morning 71-23. At 1:30, House
Early Learning and House Education ran simultaneous meetings discussing issues
that came up over the interim. In House Early Learning – the focus was on
a pilot program in Spokane known as “FAR” for Family Assessment Response.
This program is part of the Title IV waiver which allows the Children’s
Administration to look at an alternative pathway to the traditional CPS
investigative model. Children’s Administration Director Jennifer Strus
presented the update on the “FAR” approach which seems to be achieving some
level of success. I have attached her presentation above.

Over in the House Education
Committee, members discussed the QEC Report presented by Representatives Kathy
Dahlquist and Kristine Lytton; Two Presentations by the State Board of
Education on the “health” of Education in Washington and Education and
Efficiency Waivers; and finally, a report on deaf and hard of hearing
interpreter standards. All presentations are included above – for more
information, I do have the official reports and can put them on the blog at a
later date upon request.

Good
morning from the E-Wire! We are down in Olympia now as the House and
Senate prepare for caucuses and opening session.

Breaking news for our
Eastern Washington Members – Representative Haler’s Groundbreaking Legislation
to attempt to fill the access to health care gap in Southeast Washington has
received a hearing in House Higher Education. The bill, HB 2109, will be
heard on Friday the 17th at 8AM in House Hearing Room A. Here
is the link to the bill: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?year=2014&bill=2109

This afternoon, the House will
be engaging in the first round of legislative hearings in Education, Early
Learning, and Appropriations. The E-Wire will be there, taking notes and
sending you an update later today. This morning, the following Education
and Whole child related bills were introduced. The bill list included all
pre-filed bills, but E-Wire readers have already seen that list so, here are
the rest…

By this time on Monday, we will be knee deep in legislative
session. Because of the increased activity by E-Wire – we are going to
post this in two segments. The first will be a review of upcoming
legislative hearings for the week of 1/13-17. The second will be our
regularly scheduled E-Wire!

E-Wire will now be reporting to you all things Education
from the halls of the O’Brien and Cherberg Building. Judging from
published reports, the legislature will be very busy this coming week, so the
E-Wire is prepared and putting together a review of pending Education and Whole
Child Bills and a brief summary of the hearings scheduled this week. In
reviewing the hearings, we are seeing some themes for the week:

Thursday, January 9, 2014

We have another drop from our friends at the Code Reviser’s
Office in Olympia. The latest group includes:

SB 5994 – Senator Doug Ericksen (Bellingham) - A Common
School Fund Charter Schools Fix. The Superior Court ruling on Charter
Schools placed some restrictions on capital financing of charter schools.
This bill would remove the obstacles that were highlighted in the decision.

SB 5997 – Senator Jan Angel (Gig Harbor) – Currently,
Superior Court may ignore paternity DNA tests in paternity cases where the
child has some established relationship with the male in question. This
option for the court would be removed and paternity would be denied in cases
where a DNA test proves the male is not the father of the child.

SB 6002 – Senator Andy Hill (Redmond) – Senate version of
the companion bill that Ross Hunter introduced in the House on
appropriations. This is the Governor’s Budget proposal. Unlike the
House, the Senate has not listed a hearing date at this time.

HJR 4213 – Representative Elizabeth Scott (Monroe) –
Constitutional Amendment establishing term limits for the legislature of eight
years for either house or both. Members can be elected to the other house
or return after a two year interim.

For the 2014 Legislative Session, most Senate committees will continue to use the Electronic Committee Sign-In Program. Those wishing to sign-in for a bill may do so on the day of the hearing by:

Using a web-enabled device (laptop, tablet, or smart phone), navigate to https://app.leg.wa.gov/CSI, only while on campus and connected to the Legislature’s WSLPublic wireless internet network; or

Accessing one of the public sign-in kiosks located in the Cherberg building main hallway, each Senate hearing room, or the 1st floor of Pritchard and Legislative buildings.Note: If the committee's name does not appear in the sign-in program, go to the hearing room to sign-in on the paper sheets

A new feature beginning in 2014 will allow you to create an optional account that stores your sign-in information & history. Accounts are only accessible by using a web-enabled device, and are not available at the kiosks.

A demonstration of the sign-in program, including new features, will be given on January 13 and 15, at 1:00 p.m. in Senate Hearing Room 3.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

So a funny thing happened to the E-wire while we were down
in Olympia meeting with legislators before the beginning of session. That
funny thing would be slew of Education and PTA related bills
(Educane? Edupaloza? Eduquake?) were pre filed and released at the close
of business yesterday. This is likely to be happening over the next few
days as legislators trickle down to Olympia in preparation for the 2014
Legislative Session which starts in a few days.

Monday, January 6, 2014

The E-wire is down with
Legislative Director Sherry Krainick making appointments in Olympia and meeting
with our legislators. The mood is quiet down here and for the first time
in a long while, the Code Reviser’s Office isn't slammed the week before
session. This could be a trend, or it could be the calm before the storm
on Friday at noon which is the deadline for bills to be introduced on the first
day of the legislative session. Time will tell, and we will check back
with our friends at the Pritchard Library later in the week for an
update. No education bills have been released today, so onto the E-Wire!

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Washington State PTA is the largest volunteer association in the state, with more than 132,000 members in 850+ local PTAs.

Our vision? Make every child's potential a reality. We will do that by being a powerful voice for all children, a relevant resource for families and communities, and a strong advocate for the well-being and education of every child.